COMMONWEALTH SECONDARY SCHOOL

PRELIMINARY EXAMINATION 2020

COMPUTING
Paper 1 (Theory)

Name: _____________________________________ ( ) Class: ___________

SECONDARY FOUR EXPRESS/NORMAL ACADEMIC Wednesday 2nd September

2020
7155 / 01
0800 – 1000

2h

READ THESE INSTRUCTIONS FIRST

Candidates answer on the Question Paper.

No Additional Materials are required.

Answer all questions.

Write in dark blue or black pen.

You may use an HB pencil for any diagrams or graphs.

Do not use staples, paper clips, glue or correction fluid.

Approved calculators are allowed.

The number of marks is given in brackets [ ] at the end of each question or part question.
You should show all your working.
The total number of marks for this paper is 80.

Name of setter: Mrs Leong Sai Hong

For Examiner’s Use

Parent’s / Guardian’s Signature: _____________________

/ 80
This paper consists of 12 printed pages including the cover page.

[Turn over]
1
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1 The table below contains statements about types of memory or storage.

Tick (✔) one or more boxes in each row to indicate if the statement is about
register, main memory or secondary storage.
Statement Register Main Secondary
Memory Storage
Data is lost during power interruption
Non-volatile memory
Slowest accessing speed
Storage space directly used by the arithmetic
logic unit and the control unit
Used to transfer large amounts of data from
one device to another

[5]

2 Match each of the following types of licences to its description.

Licence Description

Free and Open Source • • Software that is free for use for a
period after which users will need
to pay a fee to continue to use it.

Public Domain • • Software where unauthorised

copying of it is prohibited and its
source code is kept secret.

Freeware • • Software that is available as “lite”

version where users may use at no
cost.

Shareware • • Software that is available for users

to use, copy, study and modify.

Proprietary • • For intellectual property that have

expired or simply surrendered.
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 3

3 (a) Convert the

(i) denary number 89 into a 8-bit binary number.
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(ii) hexadecimal number 9B into a denary number.
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(iii) binary number 11100101 into a hexadecimal number.
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(b) (i) ASCII and Unicode are two applications of the hexadecimal number
system.
Explain why Unicode is a preferred choice over the ASCII standard for
character encoding.
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(ii) State two other examples where hexadecimal is used to represent binary.
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[2]

4 Describe two differences between wired and wireless networks.

1. ________________________________________________________________
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2. ________________________________________________________________
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[2]
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5 (a) Technology is widely used in the financial sector.

(i) Describe two economic benefits of using technology in the financial
sector.
1. __________________________________________________
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[1]
2. __________________________________________________
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(ii) Describe two negative impacts of using technology in the financial

sector.
1. __________________________________________________
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2. __________________________________________________
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(b) Give one type of causes for data corruption and loss and their corresponding
preventive measures.
(i) Cause
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(ii) Preventive measure
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6 A teacher wants to find out how many students in the school came from a certain
primary school and who they are.

State the inputs, the outputs and the processes.

Inputs _____________________________________________________________
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Outputs ___________________________________________________________
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Processes required __________________________________________________
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[6]

7 (a) Identify the logic gate represented by the following truth table.

A B X
0 0 1
0 1 0
1 0 0
1 1 0

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(b) Draw a truth table for a NAND gate.

[1]
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(c) An alarm in a microwave oven sounds when certain conditions occur.

The output, X, of a logic circuit that drives the alarm must have a value of 1
if:
either door is close and temperature < 100ºC and light is on
or door is open and temperature > 100 ºC and light is off
The inputs to the system are:

Input Binary Condition

D 0 Door open
1 Door close
T 0 Temperature < 100ºC
1 Temperature > 100ºC
L 0 Light off
1 Light on

Draw a logic circuit for the system.

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 7

8 Study the following algorithm very carefully.

1 done = FALSE
2 WHILE num1 < num2
3 OUTPUT “Enter first number”
4 INPUT num1
5 OUTPUT “Enter second number”
6 INPUT num2
7 ENDWHILE
8 IF num1 MOD num2 == 0
9 done = TRUE
10 ELSE
11 done = FALSE
12 ENDIF
13 OUTPUT done

(a) num1 and num2 need to be initialised before the above algorithm is run.
State a set of possible values for num1 and num2.
num1 = ______________________________________________________
num2 = ______________________________________________________
[2]

(b) (i) Complete the following trace table for the algorithm.
Use the data 1, 10, 20, 5 as input.

num1 num2 OUTPUT

[3]

(ii) State the purpose of the algorithm.

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[1]
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(c) The algorithm has only one type of validation check.

Name and describe another one validation check that could be added to
validate the input(s).
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[2]

(d) Once complete, the algorithm is tested with data for boundary conditions.
Identify two other test case conditions that could be used to test the
algorithm.
For each condition, give an example of test data this algorithm.

Test case condition Test data

[4]

9 A source code will need to be translated into machine code before it can be run on
the computer.
(a) Write down one advantage and one disadvantage of using a compiler over
an interpreter to do the translation.
Advantage: ___________________________________________________
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Disadvantage: _________________________________________________
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[2]
(b) State one example of a programming language that uses an interpreter.
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[1]
 9

10 Anna has taken a $10000 study loan. The loan is to be repaid over 5 years. The
interest rate is 5% per year. She has used a spreadsheet to keep track of the
repayments and the amount she owes.

(a) State the type of data that is held in each of the following cells.
A5 ________________________________________________________
B2 ________________________________________________________
E9 ________________________________________________________
[3]
(b) (i) The cell B8 shows the principal payment for the first year.
Identify the most appropriate function to use in cell B8.

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[1]

(ii) A formula is entered into cell B10 to calculate the total interest paid in
the first year. This formula is then copied and pasted onto cell range
C10:F10 so that the accumulated interest paid for the respective year
can be calculated.
(a) Identify the most appropriate function to use in cell F10.

__________________________________________________
[1]

(b) Write down the absolute cell address that has been used in the
formula in cell F10.

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[1]
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11 Write an algorithm, using only pseudo-code, that:

• Inputs test scores of twenty students and stores these numbers in an array
(E.g. [80, 45, 63, 95, …, 35])
Assume that each score ranges from 0 to 100.
• Outputs the average score of all students
• Outputs the array index of the highest score
You must validate all inputs.
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 11

12 A pseudo-code algorithm:
• Allows a user to input 10 words and store them in a list.
• Allows the user to input a word to search for
• Outputs a message to show if the word is in the list
• Outputs the number of times the word appears in the list

1 times = 1
2 FOR x = 1 TO 10
3 OUTPUT “Enter a word: ”
4 INPUT words[times]
5 NEXT
6 OUTPUT “Enter the word to search for: ”
7 INPUT search
8 FOR x = 1 TO 10
9 IF words[x] == search
10 times = times - 1
11 ENDIF
12 NEXT
13 IF times >= 0
14 OUTPUT “Found”
15 OUTPUT times
16 ELSE
17 OUTPUT “Not Found”
18 ENDIF

There are four errors in this pseudo-code. Locate the errors and state the correction.
Error 1: _____________________________________________________________
Correction: __________________________________________________________
Error 2: _____________________________________________________________
Correction: __________________________________________________________
Error 3: _____________________________________________________________
Correction: __________________________________________________________
Error 4: _____________________________________________________________
Correction: __________________________________________________________
[8]
 12

13 Write an algorithm, using only a program flowchart, that:

• ask the user to enter a string of characters
• ask the user to enter a character to remove from the first string
• remove the character from the string of characters whenever it occurs in the
first string to form a new string
• outputs the new string
You do not need to validate any data entered.

[7]
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